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Luge 2018/Men's singles
Format The competition exists out of four runs over two consecutive days. The fastest 20 athletes after three runs are allowed to participate in the last (fourth) run. The competitor with the lowest aggregate time for all four runs is the winner. Preview Forty athletes qualified for the event, with Felix Loch (two consecutive Olympic gold medals), Semen Pavlichenko, Wolfgang Kindl and Roman Repilov as main favorites, as they won 11 of the 13 World Cup events in the season. The other two events were won by Kevin Fischnaller and Dominik Fischnaller, who were marked as possible medal contenders. The outsiders were Johannes Ludwig, as 5th best in the world, Kristers Aparjods, as Youth Olympic champion of 2016, Chris Mazdzer and Sam Edney. The youngest competitor Reid Watts is one of eighteen lugers to make their Olympic debut, while the oldest competitor Jozef Ninis is only one of three lugers to have competed at least three times before, the other athletes being record-holding Shiva Keshavan, who was the first Indian luger to compete at the Olympic Games at Nagano 1998, and Sam Edney. Shiva Keshavan and Lien Te-an were chosen to carry the Indian flag and the flag of Chinese Taipei during the opening ceremony of Pyeongchang 2018, for the influence of the athlete in luge in the home country, and the consistency of qualifying for consecutive Olympic tournaments, respectively. Current Records Summary Run 1 Austrian David Gleirscher was a surprising victor of the first run, gaining a 0.02 seconds advantage on Felix Loch. Gleirscher broke the track record by almost a second, with 25 other riders faster than the old track record. The start record was broken as well, with Tucker West shaving 0.005 seconds off the record he set at the Olympic test event a year before, but he only managed to finish 26th in the run. Number two in the world Wolfgang Kindl had a disappointing run, getting the 11th time, with over a 0.3 seconds difference behind Gleirscher. The highlight of the first run, however, was assigned to Ukrainian luger Andriy Mandziy, who fell from his sled early in the track, and managed to get back on his board within ten seconds, finishing his run. Run 2 Hot favorite Felix Loch broke the track record as was set in the first run, leaving American Chris Mazdzer almost 0.1 seconds behind him. Roman Repilov had the third best time of the second run, climbing from fourth to third place after the first day, while Johannes Ludwig, who had the third time in the first run, dropped down to eighth place, after some mistakes during his second run. David Gleirscher only dropped down to second place, less than 0.2 seconds behind Loch. Run 3 Chris Mazdzer was the third athlete to break the track record and climbed to second place in the rankings, after Felix Loch got the second fastest time. Loch assigned Dominik Fischnaller to third fastest time by only 0.002 seconds, although the latter managed to climb from eleventh place to seventh place in the standings. David Gleirscher dropped down to third place, with a good run, while Kevin Fischnaller climbed to fourth place, albeit with over 0.15 seconds difference. Run 4 Dominik Fischnaller compensated partially for his slow start of the tournament, breaking the track record for the fourth time, with Austrian Wolfgang Kindl being the only other athlete to be faster than the old track record. Favorite Felix Loch made a mistake in his run, leaving the competition still open for medal contention, dropping down to fifth place, while Dominik Fischnaller took fourth. Fischnaller missed the bronze medal by only 0.002 seconds, with Johannes Ludwig getting the advantage, after getting the third fastest time of the run. The contest for gold would be between Chris Mazdzer and David Gleirscher, with Mazdzer having a 0.02 seconds advantage before the last run. Gleirscher managed to get the fourth fastest time of the last run, leaving Mazdzer with silver. Results Luge 2018/Men's singles/StartList|Startlist Luge 2018/Men's singles/Run1|Run 1 Luge 2018/Men's singles/Run2|Run 2 Luge 2018/Men's singles/Run3|Run 3 Luge 2018/Men's singles/Run4|Run 4 Luge 2018/Men's singles/Standings|Standings||true Category:Pyeongchang 2018 Events Category:Luge 2018